Hello everyone!
(this was written before leaving Nica and before returning to Guatemala for Semana Santa, pictured in the fotos below this post. Sorry)
March 16
It is a real gift to be able to end my time in Nicaragua at Laguna Apoyo, for my third three-day visit. Laguna Apoyo, as I have said, is a relatively pristine crater lake surrounded by the heavenly sounds of the jungle, most appreciated from about 5 until 6:30 in the morning, times I never would have dreamed of getting up voluntarily. But here I set my clock to treasure this quiet, cool, magical time of night/day, when the night sky softly sheds its stars and gives way to the deep throated growls of the Howlers and the chorus of birds and insects that reliably greet the sun’s bold appearance at the far edge of the crater before it shatters and pours its liquid gold over the surface of the laguna in a path to my feet. This is a time of day here I would not dream of missing and today I must acknowledge that it will be quite some time, if ever, that I will be fortunate enough to experience it again. It is as if the rest of the world does not exist outside this hallowed crater of life.
My dream is to continue the excellent habit of going to sleep by 10 and getting up at 5:30 every day. We shall see. Coming home to the northwest at this time of the year is perfect to experiment with changing from a night person to a morning person because it is flooded with light very early in the morning now.
It is beastly hot in Managua, and the populace has begun the annual pilgrimage to the beaches to party, the way most of the people choose to celebrate Semana Santa in Nicaragua. I understand there are processions of a religious nature here, too, and alfombra, so it is not entirely godless, but my impression is that Managua, at least, empties out all week with people reappearing at the Pacific beaches in great festive numbers. Last year, some 10 people drown in the Laguna alone, many no doubt victims of too much alcohol.
This has been a great place to nurse the grip, which moved into my lungs a week ago and in its usual manner seems almost impossible to dislodge. It is hard for me to do nothing, but I really haven’t been able to work much since I got here Friday. Today, St. Patrick’s day, I return to Managua to pack and fly out Tuesday for Guatemala for two weeks. I would rather be going home, I think, but it is hard to tell when one isn’t feeling well. It will be trouble to go to Antigua during Semana Santa, I have too much luggage, and the place will be nuts. A better alternative would have been to come home, but I cannot change my ticket. Period. Not even with paying a fee. I have learned that 5 months here would be enough for me, at least in the capacities in which I have been here, and maybe even 4 months would be enough. If I had more friends or someone I wish “with,” as we say, it might well be different. But this after all was an experiment, and given it was a big one, I feel like it has gone quite well.
I think the link I sent you to the combined films of me and about Nahual’s Stan work is not functioning. Although it worked for me right after Carlos sent it to me, it doesn’t seem to work anymore. I apologize. I will try to get a copy of the Stan film and make copies for those of you who donated to Nahual if you want a copy.
The crack team of Katherine and Laure Dunne has produced another brochure. This time for the Solar Women of Totogalpa. They certainly are inspirational and we both are very happy with the outcome, because it has less text (more info for the Women will be on a portal on Grupo Fenix’s website until they have their own website, so I could put less in the brochure than I did for Nahual, which never has had a website up and running). I will attach it to this email so you can see how pretty it is!
My stay in Nicaragua has been harder in a different way than my stay in Guatemala. In Guatemala, I was so eager to work productively and contribute, and it was not possible, but as far as living conditions were concerned, they couldn’t have been more amenable. I was right on top of a very friendly gym, I had a lovely apartment and lovely neighbors and neighborhood and a beautiful climate. Here, I found the work I so wanted, a great person to work with, and an inspiring organization with a wonderful vision, but living conditions and climate that have been a challenge.
The heat has probably been the biggest challenge for me. I simply don’t function as well in the heat, and it gets hotter and hotter at this time of the year. As I have said, Managua leaves a LOT to be desired, but I am sure that if I didn’t live with nuns, and had some friends, it would have been more fun. It has been like being locked in a tower. The country was a bit of a challenge, too, sleeping cheek to jowl with 5 other people I didn’t know and couldn’t talk to very well, in dirty conditions, eating starchy food with flies and critters everywhere, no indoor plumbing, and other unappetizing conditions. Yet it was better in the countryside, and felt freer than Managua, and if I come back, I would probably want to spend most all of my time upcountry, perhaps living in the town of Ocotal and commuting by 20 minute bus ride to the community to teach English or teach environmental practices or do any number of other things at the project. We shall see. Life takes interesting turns and I hate to plan ahead too much in order to be open to what comes.
I have learned a lot during this time. I learned how to wash clothes by hand – I have done all of my wash by hand for 3 months – on stones and washboards. I finally got pretty good at it. I learned how to take a pretty decent pan bath outside at 6:30 in the morning while fighting major goosebump attacks. I learned what Trovas are from a lovely young woman, a CELL student (center for ecological living and learning), who was among 6 students taking our Solar Culture Course the last time I was upcountry ( nuevo trova was a movement in Cuban music that emerged in the mid-1960s combining traditional folk music idioms with progressive and often politicized lyrics. Though originally and still largely Cuban, nueva trova is popular across Latin America, especially in Puerto Rico and Venezuela. The Cuban Silvio Rodriguez is one of its most popular proponents). And most important, I learned not to put my trust in someone or in an organization until spending some time watching how it operates, learning the character of the people who run it, whether it operates in a way that is sustainable, and the like.
Something I failed to mention about Grupo Fenix, and the Solar Women, is that the project also brings together former Contras and Sandinistas, who now work side-by-side cooperatively. And it is interesting for me that my favorite person upcountry from the community is a former Contra. She seemed pretty tough at first to get to know, but she turned out for me to be the warmest of all. I never thought I would like a Contra, but who knows what the circumstances were . . . her husband is a land mine victim as well, having lost a leg like my singing and guitar companion, Marco Antonio. These people have endured much and the Solar Center is evidence of their faith in the future.
I am pleased that I found a guitar to buy in Managua – not great, but better than nothing – to take back to Guatemala for a family I know there whose daughter is beginning to learn classical guitar. That enables me to leave the guitar that I bought in Guatemala in Nicaragua for Susan to take upcountry to the project (one is a steel string, the other a classical). There is now a person in charge of all equipment, tools, etc. at the Solar Center, so the guitar will be there for people to check out so everyone who wants to play or practice should have a chance at it at one time or other. Marco Antonio will be happy.
As I sit here, mangoes keep falling from the trees around the porch. It is a constant sound in Nicaragua at this time of the year, the riches of the tropics literally hitting you over the head with their abundance. As I treasure these last hours at the Laguna, my mind of necessity turns toward the future, what it will be like to return to Guatemala, what it will be like to come back to the states. I have been reminded several times of Bobby Kennedy in the past few weeks. A couple of weeks back, I was chatting with my favorite CELL student, Dana, one morning at the Solar Center upcountry, and somehow we got talking about the U.S. GNP and I said how Bhutan had a Happiness Index instead of a GNP and how you have to love a country like that, and then I said, “that reminds me of a speech Bobby Kennedy gave about the GNP and how it was not a measure of wealth at all because it included making napalm, making toxins that people put in the environment,” and Dana, this kid, pulls out this book from something like the NW Earth Island Institute or something like that, that had reprinted a large excerpt from that very speech Bobby Kennedy made so many years ago, and I read it, --- and I cried.
I have so much emotion here because I am constantly confronted by the rawness of life, poverty, people with disabilities from land mines, and god knows what else – and, in the face of it all, kindness, and the contrast between people working hard and honestly for change in the face of the ridiculous policies and the greed of our leaders and the agencies that are supposed to help. And because we have lost so much of our national conscience and our souls in the US (to shopping malls, apparently), and I remembered how I was drawn to Bobby Kennedy because of his ability to put his finger on this type of thing and express it so well and so passionately. He was a good man, I think, despite whatever he may have done for his brother, whose death seemed to free him to be who he really was. It is a shame we have had no one like him since.
I am also attaching a link to an article I just came across in the Atlantic from a couple of months back by Sarah Chayes, formerly of NPR, who is trying to make a difference in Afghanistan. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/afghans It so echoes for me Susan’s struggle to make a difference and the frustration that we feel from those organizations that are supposed to help but instead are siphoning off money for their executives or those of the private companies that get fat from them. It reminds me very much of the task I have taken on at the Laguna whenever I am here, of clearing the rocks from a path in the water so that people can walk in and out of the lake with at least fewer of the sharp volcanic rocks to navigate before they slip into the perfect liquid cool/warm soft welcoming water.
Those rocks return despite my twice daily efforts, but the task is always worth doing, because, if only for a while, it smoothes the sharpness and softens the way. Maybe that is all we can ever hope to do. To be there, faithfully, lifting the stones, moving them out of the way, facing head on the ragged edges of life and doing what we can never to forget those who have such little protection from them.
Love to you all,
Katherine
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)